The present invention relates to sheet products and, in particular, to printed mailers, particularly those in the form of sheet products with sets of uniquely encoded transaction cards, tags, labels and/or other removable printed elements.
A substantial market has developed in recent years for inexpensively manufactured, individually encoded transaction cards for such uses as store credit cards, membership cards, I.D. cards, etc. Such cards typically bear a unique code in a bar code format to permit automatic machine scanning of the codes. Such cards typically were supplied in sheets of multiple sets with one or more labels, adhesive tags, etc. being supplied with each set and bearing the same individual code number as the transaction elements for attachment to separate application forms, membership lists, etc.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,978,146 discloses, among other things, a printed sheet product including multiple, removable, transaction cards, which each bear a unique code in both machine readable format (e.g. bar code) as well as conventional human readable characters and adhesive labels printed on and cut from the same sheet and the same material of the sheet forming the core of the transaction cards. An adhesive backing is provided along the sheet underlying the labels so that the labels can be removed and attached to an application form, a membership list, or other record bearing information identifying the recipient of the transaction card(s). The core of the single sheet would be printed with the unique codes of each transaction element and label in one pass, thereby ensuring complete integrity between the codes of each card and each adjoining label.
In addition to distributing these transaction cards at point of sale locations, they have been distributed by mail. U.S. Pat. No. 5,495,981 discloses the manufacturer of such cards and key tag elements in mailer insert form, several of which can be simultaneously made in a larger sheet and then cut from the sheet and individually tipped into conventional business envelopes with windows. In such mailers, the person to whom the uniquely encoded card is being provided is printed with the unique code assigned to that individual at the same time while the mailers are being created to insure 100% integrity. To reduce costs, the mailer inserts can be made from two different materials and joined together by lamination.